I Immerse Myself in Sick Reflection
by Shadowamare
Summary: An addition to the Alesana Story, The Emptiness. A story through the eyes of a sketch artist.
1. As the last rays of sunlight fade

I Immerse Myself in Sick Reflection

As the last rays of sunlight fade, one killer chases another through the tangled madness of the city. A flash of steel announces the presence of his quarry. The stage is set the night explodes. The two clash daggers and exchange blows, heading off neck and neck. One madly screams "Annabel!" with every clash of their daggers. I am not sure who this 'Annabel' is, but the other man's exuberant smile tells me the deep importance of this person. I am horrified by the intensity of this battle. They are fighting to the death, not thinking at all about the others life. Then suddenly, they both stop. Like something from one of my plays, they stare at each other intensely. The poetry screams into my mind. Just as suddenly, the mad man infatuated with Annabel falls to the ground. His side explodes into blood as though a continuously twisting blade has punctured his heart. I turn to run, but the presence of so much blood has petrified my. Using my peripherals, I see the other man turn toward me. Then I hear the words that will forever haunt me. "I handed you a knife and my heart, and now the dream is over." With that, the Artists last words leave his lips as the life leaves his eyes.

As I look back onto these terrible events, I realize I have no clue why I called him the 'Artist'. It is as though I subconsciously knew all the events about to transpire. I tried to turn before the other man decides what to do with me, but behind me is a mirror I do not remember being there before. In the mirror, behind me, I see the man come into the light. His looks… They are mine! He is I, I am he. I do not know how this is possible, but I did not have much time to find out. The last thing I saw before the darkness engulfed me into a decaying and lifeless state is I, reaching around to cut my neck open.

Oh how my poetry mocks me. I can hear the words now, "How does the dagger feel now when you're on the receiving end?" I deserve this cold death. I killed the innocent Artist…

After an eternity in darkness, feeling my flesh decay and my bones brittle, I awaken. I am home, in my bed. Could this all have been a dream? I turn, and my sweet Rosaline is staring lovingly into my eyes. "Hello, my love" she whispers,"Hello, my darling Rosaline. How the candle light against your soft, glowing skin refills my heart and renews my soul. You know not what I have endured in this wretched sleep which you have kindly pulled me from."

Confusion engulfs her gorgeous face.

"Sweetheart, who is Rosaline? Have thou forgotten me in said wretched sleep? I am Annabel, and you are my Artist. I am thy muse; you spoke these words to me just before you passed into sleep from the exhaustion that overcomes you after working hard on your sketches."

"Rosaline? What are you saying? You are Annabel? How do you know that name? Moreover, you think that I am the artist. How do you even know of him? You lie! Where is my Rosaline! Where is my love? Rose!"

"Darling, what is wrong? What hath happened in your sleep to make thou distraught?"

With these words, anger engulfs me. Not knowing how it got there, I lung forward with the dagger that ended my life an eternity ago and scream, "Daggers speak louder than words, imposter!" The next thing I know I am staring at Annabel, with a dagger plunged into her heart. I fled from the house, leaving the dagger in its new permanent sheath, and out into the forest. I have lived here for so long, but never before have had I noticed how godly the land around me is. I much escape from Eden's walls. I must find my Rosaline. The path I took through the forest leads me to a small town. I enter the town and begin my search, calling out to her, asking the strangers if they had seen her. Finally, I come across a mysterious woman. Her face, or what I can see of it under her hood, looks angelic. If only my heart were not already woven to Rosaline's.

My love, we soon will meet again.


	2. Annabel, look what you've started

The mystery woman directs me toward and ally way, saying what I seek is through it. Overjoyed, I run into it as fast as I can. It was not until it was too late that I realized I had been lured into a trap. I turn to see the opening I had used not but two minutes ago was gone, leaving me trapped. The only way out was to go forward. With the feeling of desperation compelling me to go forward, I suddenly emerge into a small clearing. At the opposing end of it, I see a building. I hear laughter and drunken piano playing coming through the crack of the door. I enter the threshold to find I am above a bar, on a balcony, with eight others scattered in the room below me.

One man looked so familiar, I could not help but watch him as he slowly made his way to the bar and ordered a shot of whiskey. He plays with the glass a bit, and turns around, eyeing the other drunken inhabitants of the Tavern. He slowly gets up, and walks to a large man in the middle of the room. They exchanged a few words, and with a scream, the man unsheathes his dagger and slices the neck of poor innocent. The six other people's exclamations of mirth went silent for a split second. It was soon replaced by the helpless screaming for their very lives.

One by one, they are cut down. Pounding helplessly on the locked door, hiding uselessly in the corner, they all end up lacerated until they are barely recognizable. Until he gets to the last victim. He leans in, licks the sweat and tears off his cheek, and plunges the dagger straight into his heart. That is when I realized it. It was my dagger. The one that ended my life. The one I left in that wretched Annabel. That is when fate took a drastic turn. He pulled the blade out of the mans heart, turned back to the bar, and downed his whiskey, looking up at the balcony and straight into my eyes.


	3. Windows cast her gentle reflection

His expression rapidly changed from shock, to rage, to apathy. He slowly dropped his placid gaze toward something behind the bar. Not wanting for the battle I oversaw at the beginning of this hell of a journey I am going through I turned and ran out the door. I had to go back to the house. He had my dagger, but it could not have been my dagger. The blade, the hilt, custom made. I do not know how he could have replicated it. Had he been at my house? Could he have found Annabel's cold, rotting corpse?

Before I can return home to answer these questions, my clumsiness gets the better of me. Climbing down a rather large hill, I lose my footing and hit my head on a rock, only to awake several hours later in the night's cool air. Rain splashing down upon me, I must have been out for at least a day. I need to return to that wretched house. My empire there has fallen, faster than I could outrun the Shadows, but now that I have been consumed by them, the Shadows are not so bad. Now I will play their silly game and move like a pawn in a petty game of chess. Before all this happened, my flesh was burning from the embers of my life, writing tales of beautiful utopias ravaged by war, drama, tragedies, and the works, but now that I am living one, I can see how drab my old life was. So I return to my house. Sprinting at full force, I get there in twenty minutes. I must have traveled farther than I remembered before going unconscious.

Upon my arrival, I hear the weeping of a fool, gone lost with the loss of his love. I had to stifle my laughter. Once I had gotten closer, I noticed whom this pathetic fool was. The Artist. I could no longer hold in my jubilance. His cries of sorrow tell me he thinks he is the one who killed Annabel. I have no clue how he came to that conclusion, but now I know what the Shadows want me to do. If they are this deviant, they cannot be mere Shadows. More like Gods. I have a quest, given to me by the Gods.

Gods have funny ways of working. As the Artist looks at me, I feel the dagger that had ended Annabel forever appear in my sheath. I pull it out, and toy with the blade. A flash of lightning reveals his face of shock and horror.

"Look at you, you miserable fool. Get off your knees. God has turned his back on you. Heavens gates are shut, and now you are knocking on the devils door. I have been expecting you for some time sir allow me to introduce myself. I'm the one that's pulling all the strings now, and you're lucky I don't kill you where you stand." The Gods cannot punish me for toying with the heathen.

Before the next flash of light, I was gone, running through the forest. If the Gods were going to have me do this, I was not going to be a pawn, but I was going to be a player in this game.


	4. Dead girls don't just appear

Once I am sure he thinks I am gone, I double back to find him. He has just left and entered the forest. Following this distracted imbecile was the easiest thing I did that night. It took us a little over an hour to get back into the town. As soon as we entered the town, his behavior changed drastically. Before, I could tell his thoughts were somewhere else. The closer we got to the town the darker his presence became. I could tell he was loosing hope; loosing the will to live. Now his aura seems to be emitting anger, hatred. I can tell he is resisting the urge to slaughter anyone unlucky enough to be outside his or her house today. He quietly chants to himself, "Dead will choke the streets with such vulgarity that grown men will weep". His hand twitches to his blade every few seconds. Finally, we turn down one of the towns many ally ways. He drops to his knees, holding the blade close to his neck.

I cannot let him kill himself. The Gods would be angry with me if I were to let him die on his terms. Just as the blade touches his skin, and I am about to react, a glowing angel descends from the heavens. As her light fades, I swear, it is Rosaline. Almost an exact replica. However, those eyes, they belong that wretched Annabel. At least I can now resume my observing and act when necessary.

They exchange few words in that ally, and when they leave, the now glowing Artist is the happiest I have ever seen him. He does not deserve this happiness. After murdering in cold blood, he deserves hell. I now know what I have to do. I have to kill Annabel, again.

After listening to their conversations and following them back to his house again, I learn that this girl is not Annabel. Ha, pathetic. He has fallen for an imposter of an imposter. The show will start soon. I can feel it. Are you ready to run Artist? I've been waiting patiently for this. They begin to lean in for a kiss, and as if on cue, this Annabel imposter disappears, a gift from the Gods. The frantic Artist searches the room, until his eyes spot me outside. I turn and walk away into the dark forest. It is time for me to be the mouse in this game. At least let him think he is the cat.


	5. The joke is on you this time

Now here we are, chasing each other through the tangled madness of the city. A flash of steel announces The Artists whereabouts. I instinctively draw my own dagger, blocking his strike and with a successive maneuver grazing his arm. Blood slowly drips from his open wound. He runs at me again with his dagger, hoping for a clean shot at my neck, but his skills are obviously even less than mine. It is almost as if I know every move he will make before it is made. Our blades collide and I jump back, gaining room to ready myself for my attack. Our battle lasts for the longest 10 minutes of my life.

Finally, I can feel it is time. I stop dead in my run about ten yards away from him. The Gods are ready to finish him. His eyes go blank. The life is gone, as if his soul is somewhere else for now. Then suddenly, his rib cage explodes in blood. The sound of blood running onto the stone ground is covered by the cries of anguish escaping his lips. He falls to the ground, seizing. He whispers something to no one in particular, and then he is gone. It is at that point I see an onlooker. I suppose it is time to have some fun.

As I walk over to him, he turns to run, but stops suddenly. What a fool. He thinks he can kill me, does he? Not even stopping to look at his face, I reach around and slit his throat. His body falls to the ground, and I can feel myself being pulled away to another place; pulled right out of reality and into another sort. Even as I am suddenly jerked away from the street I was just standing on, I am not surprised. I have been expecting this. After doing the bidding of the Gods, it is only right to get a face-to-face thank you.

When I get to my destination, however, I am surprised. I am back in the Artists bedroom. The Artists lifeless body is lying in the floor in front of the mirror. Lying on the bed where I murdered that imposter, Annabel, is a Goddess. No. The Goddess.

"Rosaline…?"


	6. The Emptiness

Several moments pass before she seems to notice me. When she finally looks up at me, her face shows only disappointment. She says nothing but instead walks over to the Artists body and inspects it.

"My love, I've waited so long to see you. Do you know what I have gone through so that this meeting is perfect? We can live our lives now without those fools ruining our love."

"You are the fool. Must you be so blind? After everything that has happened, you still do not realize what you have truly done. Look now, at these bodies and tell me you do not see what they see. I see what they see. If you still will not open, your eyes to the truth then look into the mirror. The mirror will not lie to you."

Stunned by this outburst from the one I love, I do as she asks. I look over both the Artists body, and Annabel's, which is still lying on the sheets soaked in crimson from our last encounter. I look toward Rosaline, and something seems to be tugging at my mind. I must be mistaken, but I look into the mirror just to be sure.

"A mirror never lies…"

My eyes lock into their reflection. Rosaline slowly walks around so that I can see her in the mirror behind me.

"That's right. What you are seeing is real. I am Rosaline, and you are my Thespian, but I am also Annabel, and you are my Artist. Do you now see what you have done? I have been testing you, and you have failed."

I shut my eyes and once again, the pleasure strangles me.

Rosaline pulls the dagger out of the Artists limp body and slowly walks toward me.

I taste the tears of sweet indulgence, pain, and fantasy.

She reaches around me and kisses my neck one last time.

Oh, the visions inside my head…

I feel the sharp pain in my heart as I watch her slip the dagger through my rib cage. She lets go of my body and I fall to the floor exactly where the Artist was previously lying. My blood spills onto the floor in front of me. My life slips from my body and everything goes black.

The emptiness will haunt you…


End file.
